3 Review(s)

Much of D.H. Lawrence's life was defined by his passion for travel and it was those peripatetic wanderings that gave life to some of his greatest novels. In the 1920s, Lawrence travelled several times to Mexico, where he was fascinated by the clash of beauty and brutality, purity and darkness that he observed there. The diverse and evocative essays that make up "Mornings in Mexico" - "Market Day", "Dance of the Sprouting Corn", "The Hopi Snake Dance" - bring to life the elemental simplicity of the Zapotec Indians in Mexico, the intense, dark rhythms of the Indians in the American South West and are brightly adorned with simple and evocative details sharply observed: piles of fruit in a village market, strolls in a courtyard filled with hibiscus and roses, the play of light on an adobe wall. It was during his time in Mexico that Lawrence re-wrote "The Plumed Serpent", which is infused with his own experiences there. The spirited eloquence and beauty of the essays in "Mornings in Mexico" thus illuminate the inspiration behind of one of Lawrence's most loved works and immerse the reader in a portrait of the country like no other.